From our heroic vineyard of Grecanico Dorato, located at 1100 mt. a.s.l. on Mount Etna, our Millesulmare has been chosen to accompany Pope Francis’s menù during his Apostolic travel in Ecuador in July.
Marco Picano is the chef that organized the event, he has tasted our Millesulmare during a very important Italian wine festival (the chef really loves Etna wines) and he decided to include them on the menù for the Pope’s flight on July 5th.
Our friend SUNSHINE LICHAUCO DE LEON, journalist and producer, after having visited us numerous times has send us this lovely story.
Follow Sunshine on www. sunshinedeleon.com
There is nothing like exploring Sicily through the eyes of a Sicilian. They know and love their beautiful island with a passion that is contagious and admirable. Sicilians and southern Italians do everything with extreme passion whether hate or love, and Sicilians love their home.
Mount Etna is, with its 3343 meters above the sea level, the highest volcano in Europa and for us it’s also the most beautiful. It stands uncontested against the huge sky that has witnessed its birth and its polyhedral transformations over the course of time. Ruler of part of Eastern Sicily, its pride and its restless nature have been accurately recorded over thousands of years, bestowing upon Mungibeddu, a nickname affectionately given to the mountain by the population living on his slopes, a sense of reference, gratitude and respect unique all over the world, which is typical of a holy mountain.
Our friend Dario di Bella, photographer and writer, proving once more his boundless love for Mount Etna, wanted to add our vineyard to a number of nights spent sleeping in the open, without a tent. He calls these experiences Microadventures and they have many followers among lovers of nature and of eco-friendly tourism. Dario is one of those people who chose to dedicate their life to their dreams, which are nature, photography and writing. With his sweet wife, he left Milan in order to spend most of their time on the Nebrodi Mountains. They had planned this return to nature for years, studying every move.
Curiosity, a need for oxygen and salt air and the necessity of a short change of perspective brought us here, on the distant and wild Alicudi.
It’s not easy coming here. There are few connections and it takes almost 3 hours by hydrofoil from Milazzo. As soon as you touch the ground, however, you enter another dimension: a small society, shaped by the proud heights of this ancient volcano. Alicudi is nothing else than the emerged part of a more than 150 million years old volcano (Etna was born approximately 600 thousand years ago). If you try humanizing volcanos, just for a second, assuming that Etna was a little 18 years old girl (Sicilian people often attribute the feminine gender to Mont Etna: “a Muntagna!” (la montagna – the mountain)), then Alicudi would be a lively 4500 years old man.
Respect to Alicudi.
We are honored that the 5th May 2015 the Board of Directors of CERVIM, after a full review of our Company, has decided to include SantaMariaLaNave, and our white wine Millesulmare of Grecanico dorato vines, amongst its members. CERVIM is an international organism, created in 1987 under the auspices of O.I.V., Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin. Many regions and regional organisms joined this Center, all brought together by their common interest in promoting and safeguarding mountain viticulture.
Our friend Dario Di Bella, photographer and writer, author of the beautiful picture of Etna below…is spending the night tonight in our vineyard…our vines and Etna will inspire him. More to come…
It was the last Saturday of October and maybe it was time for the last harvest on Mount Etna –maybe in the entire Sicily. All grapes of Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Cappuccio and Caricante had been gathered from the vines we can see along the streets and Etna wines were already coming to life deep in the cellars – just the craziness of a vineyard located at more than 1100 meters above sea level could push someone to such a late harvest. It had been a wonderful year on Etna, especially for white wines, while in the rest of Italy it had been a very difficult year for harvesting. That day the weather was cool, after the muggy weather of last week. At dawn I went with Sonia to Contrada Nave, where we could find our wonderful grapes, our clusters of Grecanico Dorato and Albanello: sweet and golden with pink hues, untouched.
Last night we were contacted by some friends who wanted to congratulate us for the good article posted on the influential wine and food blog of Luciano Pignataro. We were pleasantly surprised and honored by the praises to our wines, Millesulmare and Calmarossa, written by the journalist and sommelier Fabio Panci, who tried a Calmarossa of 2011 and a vertical tasting of Millesulmare at Vinitaly.
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Today a special report on Vinitaly was broadcast on Sky Classlife, edited by the journalist and reporter Tarsia Trevisan. Few minutes of the report are about SantaMariaLaNave, including an interview to Sonia. Below we are posting the link where you can see this special report. The part on SantaMariaLaNave starts from minute 6.
http://video.milanofinanza.it/classlife/viaggi-sapori/un-vinitaly-2-0-37860/
We are posting a short video with some pictures from our last harvest in Contrada Nave, at an altitude of 1100 meters above sea level. This year, the harvest was on October 25. A day full of joy that crowns a year of work on our wonderful vines.
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N.O.P.A.Q.U.I.E. from d2studio on Vimeo.
Why should we talk of religious festivities on the website of a company that produces Etna wines? It’s an understandable question, but everyone who has been in the province of Catania during the celebration in honor of Saint Agatha (from the evening of February 3 to the morning of February 6) knows that all the province stops to honor the “Santuzza” (little Saint in Sicilian dialect). This celebration is huge, rich in tradition and folklore, intense and passionate.
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The chef Angelo Scuderi has chosen our wines as top products for its restaurant, pairing them with typical dishes of Etnean tradition, revisited with its innovative style, and also as ingredients for some of his recipes, which we will be publishing on our blog during the next months. We thank chef Scuderi and we report the introduction page to his menu, which is a great honor for us.
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To our great satisfaction, some friends have told us that we have received a “surprising” review, to put it mildly, of our flagship wine, “Millsulmare” Sicilia DOC Bianco, produced with Grecanico Dorato. The review appeared some days ago on the portal www.bereilvino.it and the author judges our wine as indeed surprising. We are very happy to share its opinion with you.
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Pros and cons of a vineyard located at extreme altitudes. Some of our more expert friends that visited our vineyard have pointed out that our vines grow at the most extreme altitude in the entire Europe. We knew already that having a vineyard at more than 1100 meters of altitude isn’t normal but, in a spirit of healthy curiosity, we have done some simple researches on the Internet.
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